What is the strategic benefit here of not attacking? The warning is unlikely to change us behaviour by itself, at most it might just get america more on alert.
> Iran is playing a long game
Doesn't seem like it. Attacking semi-neutral gulf states and mining the strait are desperation moves. They are things that sacrafice the long term but you still do them because if you dont fix the short term there won't be a long term.
> Indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets is not going to win it many friends
Which has played out in practise... part of the reason why the usa is getting such limited push back internationally (basically just some strongly worded letters) is nobody really like iran because of how they have conducted themselves historically.
They have had no issue with fairly indiscriminate attacks so far in this war, i doubt they are going to start now.
> The fact that Iran has already done some damage to AWS data centers makes it seem likely they could do so again if they tried.
The threat here seemed to be cyberattacks and/or physical attacks on US based infrastructure.
Nobody doubts that iran can fire drones/missiles at their next door neighbour (although some reason to doubt they can keep it up). Attacks on us soil and/or cyberattacks are a different story.
